Dear Editor:
In Defense of the Class of '71

In the last Westerner, Sue Wiese made a correlation between students who want the voting age changed and those seniors who acted up during The Sound of Music preview. All I can say is if those 18‑year‑olds had to suffer through that assembly, they would have voted against it.

There's nothing wrong with making mistakes; everyone makes them. The problem comes about when so many mistakes are made in 20 minutes. It's like a seven‑course dinner. Start out the assembly with a Maine West teacher leading the class in the pledge and getting mixed up on it half way through, add a band member who drops a drum stick rather loudly during a key line, and further add overacting by some of the performers. This adds up to a situation that is disgraceful.

Sure, our emotions ran a little high. But with the mistakes made in that assembly plus the fact as Dave Congalton put it in last issue's Open Column, "emotions cannot be turned on and off like a radio," and you have justification for our conduct.

Someone once wrote that "to err is human." If this person would have sat in on that senior preview of The Sound of Music, he would have also noticed that to err is funny.

Larry Henkle

Dear Editor:
We, the vast majority of normal people, currently involved in American literature, feel that we must protest the current policy of the English Department concerning special treatment given to accelerated and L English students ‑ namely field trips.

Are the English teachers so ashamed and afraid of being seen with us normal kids that we have been excluded from beneficial cultural activities? Let us inform you that their upcoming field trip includes dinner and a show at the Ivanhoe Restaurant.

We feel that this treatment is prejudiced and unfair and that the regular English student is being wronged. Give us one good, solid reason for excluding us, besides the typical, adult reason of tradition!

Names Withheld